Afford Anything - Life as an Experiment -- with A.J. Jacobs

Episode Date: November 27, 2017

#105: A.J. Jacobs is the Editor-at-Large of Esquire Magazine and the New York Times bestselling author of multiple books. His three TED Talks have collectively garnered more than three million views. He describes himself as "a father of three, husband of one, and cousin to millions." And he's probably your cousin. Twice removed. AJ joins me on this episode to chat about motivation, habits, and living life as an experiment. Here are some of the stories we cover: - Why AJ divulged his entire sexual history to actress Scarlett Johansson. - How AJ successfully and frequently changes his behaviors and habits. - AJ's experimental approach to life. - Why the adage "fake it 'til you make it" -- or rather, "fake it 'til you become it" -- is essential for developing habits. - How gratitude at extreme levels can become a mindset game-changer. - How healthy living nearly killed him. - AJ's quest to demonstrate the idea that we're all related -- and throw the world's largest family reunion. Resources Mentioned: A.J.'s Books: It's All Relative My Life as an Experiment A Year of Living Biblically Drop Dead Healthy The Know-It-All A.J.'s TED Talks: My Year of Living Biblically https://www.ted.com/talks/a_j_jacobs_year_of_living_biblically How Healthy Living Nearly Killed Me https://www.ted.com/talks/aj_jacobs_how_healthy_living_nearly_killed_me The World's Largest Family Reunion https://www.ted.com/talks/aj_jacobs_the_world_s_largest_family_reunion_we_re_all_invited   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

You can afford anything but not everything. Every decision that you make is a trade-off against something else. And that's true, not just of your money, but also your time, energy, focus, attention, anything in your life that is a scarce or limited resource. And so the questions become twofold. Number one, what do you prioritize the most? What do you value the most? And number two, how do you align your day-to-day behaviors to reflect those priorities? Answering those questions is a lifetime practice.

And that is what this podcast is here to explore. My name is Paula Pan. I am the host of the Afford Anything podcast. And today, one of my favorite authors, the hilarious A.J. Jacobs is on the show. I am super excited about this. I've been reading A.J. since I was in college. He writes about a broad array of topics, but the theme throughout most of his work is that he lives his life as an experiment. So he will dive head first into a thing in order to experience what that thing is like.

And he will try to act his way into a new way of thinking and feeling and being. Some people call this immersive journalism or stunt journalism. I call it really freaking entertaining and with a lot of lessons along the way. So some examples of some of the things that he does. There was one year where he decided to become the healthiest man in the world. He took every possible way that a person could be healthy, hand washing, eye care, making sure that he wasn't exposed to too many loud noises. And he deeply researched all of those and then pushed every single one to its logical, beyond its logical extension. He would count the number of times he chewed every bite.

He would time himself every time he washed his hands. sometimes singing happy birthday to make sure that he was washing his hands for long enough. So that's the type of stuff that AJ does. And the lessons that he gains from that, both about the topic itself as well as about the concept of acting your way into new forms of thinking and feeling and being, are I think very universally applied concepts that we can learn from and that we can apply to any facet of business or money or life. Oh, and this is totally new. I've never done this before, but I made a transcript of this interview and you can download it for free at Afford Anything.com slash episode 105. That's Affordanything.com slash episode 105 to download

the transcript of this for free. By downloading it, you'll also sign up to have show notes delivered to your inbox every Monday so that you can quickly scan to see what that week's episode is about. So without any further delay, one of my my favorite writers, A.J. Jacobs discussing his highly experimental and experiential approach to life. Hey, Cousin, AJ. Hello, Cousin. How are you? I'm fantastic. It's good to be talking to a long-lost cousin like yourself, cousin I've never met. I know. I feel we are very close cousins, probably like 14th or 15th. Absolutely. For all the listeners who are wondering what we're talking about, we'll get to that at the end.

But first, AJ, I actually wanted you to know, in order to facilitate a better interview today, I tried as close as I could to dress head to toe in white. Oh, fantastic. Thank you, Paula. I wish I were. I'm wearing blue, but I wish I were wearing white. I know everyone who's listening is wondering what on earth we're talking about. That concept came from one of your many books in which you completely dove into a new culture to figure out how it would change your headspace. And so that concept, the concept of wearing white, was from your book called A Year of Living Biblically. Will you talk about that for a little bit? Sure. That's what I like to do is sort of do these experiments, radical self-improvement.

I need a lot of improvement. I grew up with no religion at all. as I say in my book, I'm Jewish, but I'm Jewish in the same way the Olive Garden is Italian. So, not very, but I wanted to see if there was anything in the Bible that would make my life better. So I thought I would follow it as literally as possible. So I followed the famous ones, the Ten Commandments, but I also grew this huge beard because the Bible says to grow a beard. I didn't wear clothes made of mixed fibers, no polycotton blends. That's in the Bible, weirdly enough.

And speaking of clothes, there is a line in the Bible that says you should only wear white garments. So there's a lot of stuff people don't know or remember in the Bible. And I started to do that. And the weird thing about it was it actually was a lovely practice because I felt much lighter. I felt like I was, you know, off to play Wimbledon or go to P. Diddy's Party. And it was a real lesson, and this is throughout all of my books, I found, that the outer affects the inner, that the way you act or dress or behave eventually sinks in with your brain. And that I found to be one of the most useful things in my life, not necessarily wearing white, which I do endorse, but just acting in a certain way until your mind catches up. One of the examples that you gave that always stood out to me was when you bought your wife a present every day for 30 days.

And by the end of the month, you discovered that you felt more loving towards her because you were acting that way. Oh, yeah. I totally tricked my brain. I was like, oh, I'm buying her all of these little books and magnets. I must really love her. And then you start to. Your brain is not very smart or mine isn't. I can't speak for yours.

But yeah, it could be anything. It could be another one I find very useful is I don't think I was born very confident, but I do believe you need confidence and optimism to get things done. So I'll try to act in a confident way. I was writing a book about health, and I was just, I woke up every day full of despair. You know, this book is too big. I can't get my handle on it. It was about trying to be the healthiest person alive, by the way.

But then I said, okay, I'm going to act as if I'm confident. So I would call my publisher and say, okay, when the book comes out, let's have a big party and serve kale martinis. And, you know, I would just pretend that it was going to be a hit. And after a couple of hours of this, my brain caught up with my actions. And I was like, you know what, I feel good about this book. And I was finally able to write it because of that feeling. How did you deal with? Because I remember in interviews, you talked.

about how there was some part of you that wondered, like, wait a minute, what if I go on book tour for a book in which I'm supposed to be the healthiest man in the world? And what if on that book tour, I'm like a little bit overweight and also sick? That was a very stressful book, exactly. I sort of made my bed. And luckily, I did not get sick on the tour. But yet, I think that's just a risk. Every project, you know, whether you're a writer or or an accountant or whatever, there's going to be an element of risk. And I'm pretty conservative. I don't like to take too huge a risk.

But I thought that was a risk worth taking. You dealt with that by being confident, like pretending that you were confident until you actually felt that way? Exactly. And also, you know, acting in a healthy way, even if I didn't feel healthy. So I did do the, you know, eating and relatively healthy exercise. and also the stress. Stress, I think, is people talk about exercise and food, but really stress is just as important.

So trying not to be stressed. And I figured out all of these little hacks, some work better than others. But just to give you one example, human touch is actually very good at stress relief. I think we were evolutionarily meant to sort of groom each other. So even holding my wife's hand, good for stress. There are studies that say holding strangers hands does lower your stress level.

I did not find that. Like trying to hold the stranger's hand just caused a very awkward and unpleasant situation. So I don't recommend that, but there is evidence that it does if you can get over the awkwardness. And sexual harassment claims. That would be a bad day on the New York City subway. Exactly. Very dangerous. I've also heard you in interviews quote the founder of Habitat for Humanity saying it's easier to act your way into a new way of feeling. And I've heard you in interviews talk about how you have found time and time again with all of your experiments, whether it's living biblically or outsourcing every aspect of your life or all of these different assignments, you have always acted your way into a new type of, thinking and feeling. Right. How do you kickstart that? Like, how do you get that initial momentum, even when you don't feel like it? That's a great question. And I do believe that it is extremely effective. I love that quote you had. It's easier to act your way into a new way of thinking than to

think your way into a new way of acting. I mean, they're shorter versions. Fake it till you make it or fake it till you become it, which is Amy Cuddy's version. I like that. Deed before Creed is another one. they say. But anyway, I think, yeah, the kickstarting is an interesting conundrum. I would say one thing I do is almost just convince myself I'm an actor. It's almost like, you know, there's method acting. So what about method writing or method living? So you say, you know, this is just an experiment. Keep in mind, I can always go back. But let's see what happens if this makes my life better. That's also one of my big themes is that you don't have to be writing about this stuff to do it. But I do think that everyone doing little experiments with their lives can improve their happiness.

And it could be trying a new toothpaste. You know, I have been using the same toothpaste for 30 years because some kid at camp liked Crest. And I was like, okay, he's cool. I guess I'll do Crest. But, you know, change it up. See if you like something better. take a different way to work. I do think the experimental mindset is really important to happiness. I want to dive into that a little bit. Since you've started running all these experiments in your life,

have you found that your overall life satisfaction has increased? Or do you have more moments of peak happiness during the day? I do think I am certainly much happier than I was 20 years ago. I mean, it's a little bit of a correlation causation problem because I am. The books actually have done relatively well, so I've been able to make a living at doing something I love. So it's possible that I would have been, without that, I would still be miserable. But I do think I am happier, which I'm certainly not perfectly happy, but happier. And part of it is just, yeah, this mindset of trying things out. And also another big theme that I think affects my happiness is the idea of gratitude. For instance, in the Bible, it says you've got to be thankful for everything. I took that quite literally, and I started being grateful for the tiniest things,

like pressing the elevator button. I was grateful the elevator came. I get in the elevator. I'm grateful it doesn't plummet and break my pelvis. So there are hundreds of things every day that we just take for granted. I try to start to be aware of them. Instead, of focusing on the three or four that went wrong, which is sort of my default mode. And that has genuinely improved my life, just being so aware, anytime you're on a line that's short at the pharmacy, just make a note of that. So the next time you're on a long line, be like, you know what? It balances out.

So I would say these hacks have made my life better overall. Your example about the line also reminds me of the time that you tried to be the most rational person in the world because that's also a cognitive bias that we have, is negativity bias. Right. I love that experiment. I'm glad you read that. Thank you, Paula.

But yeah, that one, as you say, it was all about the hundreds of cognitive biases we have in our brain, and they are just terrible. Like, our brain, it's got some good parts, but it was built for caveman times. So I don't trust my brain. I feel I have to be a babysitter to my brain and make sure it doesn't go into these negative places. So as you're trying these different experiments, how do you stick with it? You know, you might decide that you're going to chew every bite very slowly. And sure, you'll do that for the first or second meal, but how do you stick with it meal after meal?

And how frequently do you fall off the wagon? Oh, well, certainly I fall off the wagon quite a bit. I mean, one very effective method, I think, is public humiliation. So telling everyone you know that you're doing this, you know, I'm going to be a vegetarian for a week. And then if you go out to dinner with friends, they can mock you if you're not. So a little bit of accountability is good. I mean, I found that too when I was, I do try to still get 10,000 steps a day. And I was on this board where people could, friends could see.

how many steps I did and mock me relentlessly if I did not achieve them. I found that very, very motivating. So, yeah, getting it out into the public is a good thing. When you do fall off the wagon, have you noticed any common triggers that precede that? Well, that's interesting. I mean, one thing is I find I am more motivated by the idea that whatever I'm doing, could be helpful to others. Like with health, for instance. If I'm just thinking about I want to be healthy because I want to have abs, which I've never had and never will, that's not very motivating to me.

But if I'm thinking, you know what, I want to be healthy because I want to live to be around for my kids, you know, so I can see them, you know, join a band or get married or whatever they end up doing, I want to be around for them. So trying to see that your motivation is not just for you, but for other people. That helps me stay on course. And it's interesting, I've noticed that I listened to an interview with Kanye West a long time ago, and it was very surprising because I don't think he's a very, I'm not a big fan because I think he's an egomaniac. But I did like that he said his music.

makes people happy, and that's what motivates him. So it was a little break in what I had always thought of his extreme ego media. So, yeah, trying to do it for other people. Can you describe a day in the life? Like, what's your morning routine? Give me some insight into the world of A.J. Jacobs. Oh, I'm happy to. I hope that I'm not sure it's interesting, but I'm happy to share.

Excuse me. I'm talking about health and I'm coughing. That's not good. Well, I have a tiny little office because I do find like a rented shared workspace. I do find if I try to work from home, there is no way that anything gets done because it's just too distracting. Although I will say the sad part is I used to write more on my treadmill desk when I worked at home. Now I can't fit a treadmill into this office. But I walk to work listening to podcasts like yours, which I love.

I listen on double, double speed. So this is the first time I've ever heard you talking at a normal rate. I'm worried that there's something wrong with you. Are you feeling okay? But yeah, no, I'm actually, I am a big fan of, and this does not go over well with people who make movies or TV shows. But I like to, there's a hack where you can download movies from YouTube and watch them in double speed.

I recently watched Manchester by the sea in double speed, and I thought it was slow in double speed. So I don't know how people could sit through that in the theater, but more power to them. All right, so anyway, I get to my office. And in terms of my job, there are parts that I like and parts that I don't. The part I don't like is writing. I am a writer who does not like to write. I don't think any writers like writing. I think writers enjoy having had written.

Exactly. I am with you, Paula. I know a friend of mine who's a writer says he thinks of it as sort of like a stomach flu. Like you have to upchuck it and then you feel better. But yeah, I do love the researching part. That is what I find. And also, weirdly, the marketing, which I know is not. usual for writers. I do like marketing. But yeah, researching. For instance, I'm working on a book

that that won't come out for another year, but it's called Thank You All. And it's about I take one of my joys, my morning cup of coffee, and I try to thank every single person in the world who helped make it a reality. So not just the barista, but I went to Columbia and thanked the farmers and the truckers, the people who designed the logo, and you can go as far as, you know, could be the people who make the tires for the trucks and who got the rubber to make the tires. The idea was just to show that there are thousands of people involved in every little thing that we do. Wow.

And we kind of take that for granted. Or certainly I do. That's amazing. When I hear that, I think of kind of a combination between this concept of how we're all family, as well as the concept of being grateful when you press an elevator button. Like, I hear a merging of those two ideas. That's true. I have my themes that I seem to gravitate towards.

But hopefully it's different enough from anything else. I think it's a beautiful synthesis of those ideas. That's taking it to the next level. So I'm very excited to read that book. Oh, thanks, Paula. Yeah, I'm excited. I'm in the midst of writing it. I'm trying to be grateful to the people who, you know, make my parents.

book. But I still hate writing. Right. Right. So I've gotten off track. All right. So you get to the office and you hate writing. I hate writing, but hopefully I'm doing something more interesting like researching. Like I went for this book, I went to the reservoir in the New York City Reservoir, which is like 90 miles north to thank everyone. And you just forget how amazing it is that we can turn a little knob and have fresh, safe water. That's like shocking. That is not true for 99% of the history and certainly not for a lot of the world. But if I'm not doing that, I'm writing. And then, yeah, I just get home and I am on call as homework helper slash cleaner slash other boring fatherly duties.

And then I put the kids to bed and then I start working again. I do find it's a constant struggle because I do, and as any entrepreneur, I feel that you could always be doing more. You could always be doing more. And I feel that guilt. And I don't know. I think it's probably not healthy. I should learn to turn it off a little more.

But I do find those hours between six and ten, I totally turn it off. And I'm like, you know what? This is devoted to family. I'm not going to work. And there's something very liberating about that because I used to try to be like, okay, I'm going to help them. And then I'll take a break and send some emails. And it was very stressful and not efficient because I was always looking for the – so now I'm just – I have this. It's almost like a Sabbath.

I'm like from 6 to 10, no work, just devoted to the family. Nice. What time do you normally go to bed and wake up? Well, this is not healthy either because sleep. Sleep is so hugely important. our health. But I go to bed at about, I would say one and I wake up at about 7.30. What about you? What's your sleep routine? I don't know. I would love to have a regular routine, but mine's not very normal. So I wouldn't say that I have a sleep routine. Occasionally, when I'm at my

best, I will go through spurts where I wake up at 6 a.m. and watch the sunrise. And I'm doing great. And that'll last for maybe two weeks. And then one night, I'll stay up too late. And it'll throw off my next morning and then I'm derailed for like the next three months. Oh my God, three months. So what are you in now? What part of the cycle are you in? Well, I just flew back from Ecuador about 36 hours ago and the flight back departed from Quito just after midnight central time. And it landed in Vegas where I live at about 8.30 in the morning Pacific time. And I'm one of those people who I can't sleep on flights. I have a very hard time sleeping on airplanes. So right now I'm kind of a zombie. Well, you've been doing a very good job pretending. You're like doing that acting as-if thing very well. You don't sound zombieish. Well, thank you. Good. Because when the interview started, I intentionally smiled in order to force myself to feel like, hey, I'm really happy to be awake right now. I love it. Well, you fooled me. Definitely fooled me. And how was Ecuador? What were you doing down there? Oh, Ecuador is fantastic. It was my third time there. Once a year, myself and several other finance bloggers go down there, and we spend a week with our readers and our podcast listeners.

Wow. A few of the people who are listening to this podcast were there with me. Oh, my, that sounds amazing. Well, I think, I mean, one thing is when I get to meet my readers, I like to ask them questions because I do find people interesting as a species. And so I like talking to them. And I think that takes the pressure off for me so that it's not like, you know, I have to be this incredibly sage or a witty person. I can ask them about their life and learn from that. Absolutely.

So outsources. Yeah, absolutely. I do the same. Plus, that spares you from having the same conversation over and over and over. Right. Exactly. Nice. You know, I can tell that you do that because you're reverse interviewing right now.

You're reverse interviewing me. I do like that. Well, I will tell you this anecdote. I write for Esquire magazine sometimes, and I had to do this story on Scarlett Johansson. I didn't have to. I mean, it wasn't a chore. She's a lovely person. But I was, you know, asking her questions.

And she's like, God, you know, you're asking a lot of questions about my personal life. And I was like, well, listen, if you want to ask me about my personal life, I'm open. I'm an open book. So she took my notebook and my pen and just started grilling me about the most, like, you know, have you ever had an STD? When did you lose your virginity? And like, really going at it. I was like, I'm like, remember. So did you answer all of her questions?

I did. You know, why not? I believe in transparency most of the time. So, I mean, the good thing is I had control over what went in the article. So that, that helped. If she had her own magazine, then. might have been a little more tricky. There was that one time you had to pose nude, didn't you, for one of the models?

Didn't one of the models request that? Yes, that was a humiliating experience. But enlightening at the same time, yeah, one of the, this was at Esquire magazine. My boss wanted me to write an article about Mary Louise Parker, the actress, or edit an article. He said, well, can you ask her to pose nude? tastefully nude, but we do enjoy nude photography. I was like, oh boy. So I asked her, and she said, all right, I'll do it,

but only if the editor of the piece also poses nude so he can see what it feels like and go through the experience himself. And that was me. I was the editor of the piece, so my boss was like, all right, she said, she challenged you. So I did. I took off my clothes and I was tastefully photogrammed. by a professional

Hollywood photographer. I did cover up my privates and I did suck in my gut. He kept telling me, suck in your gut. And it did appear, you know, there's this beautiful series of pages of her naked and then

there's a page of me naked. And I think it was a shock to some of our readers. We did get a couple of cancellations, I believe. But I did love her, I loved her boxy. I loved her the idea. You know what? This is something, if you're going to ask other people to do, you should have to do it yourself. Yeah, absolutely. That's totally fair.

Totally fair, right? Yeah. We'll come back to the show in just a second, but first, I have a question for all of the entrepreneurs and small business owners in this audience. What if hiring could be easier? What if it could be more streamlined and less time consuming? With ZipRecruiter, you can post your job to over 100 of the web's leading job boards with just one click. Then, ZipRecruiter puts its smart matching technology to work, actively notifying qualified candidates about your job within minutes of posting. So you receive the best possible matches. And that's why ZipRecruiter is different. Unlike other hiring sites, ZipRecruiter doesn't depend on the right candidates finding you.

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That's right, free. just go to ziprecruiter.com slash afford. That's zip, ZIP, Recruder.com slash afford. One more time, to try it for free, go to ziprecruiter.com slash afford. And we'll keep that link in the show notes as well. I want to give a shout out to fresh books. They have signed on as one of our main sponsors in 2017. and they have an awesome product.

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Give them a try for free for 30 days at freshbooks.com slash Paula. That's freshbooks.com slash p-a-u-l-a. So, AJ, tell me about how we're all cousins. Oh, yeah, well, this is my new project, my book. It's All Relative is coming out. And this one started a couple of years ago, and I got this weird email that said, you don't know me, but I've read your books,

and you're my eighth cousin. And I figured, as you probably would, as you probably advise your listeners, that there's a lot of scammers. So this guy was going to ask me to send $10,000 to Nigeria. But it turns out he was legit, and he is my eighth cousin, and he and a group of other people are building these huge family trees.

But they're not just trees. They're like forests, interlocking jungles of family. And it turns out because of DNA and the internet, it's this revolution where we are going to have eventually a family tree of every single person on earth. So you can think, and it's already quite large. It's already about 200 million people, all related.

So it's sort of like a Kevin Bacon. You can figure out how you're linked to almost everyone. For instance, Barack Obama is my fifth great aunt's husband's father's wife's seventh great nephew. So he's quite close to me. And Paul, hopefully after this interview, I'll go on the tree and figure out how you and I are linked. But it's sort of the ultimate social network.

And I was fascinated by it. So I wrote a whole book about family and all the amazing things happening in family, the huge changes, the DNA. And also, since you are sort of a business finance podcast, there was an interesting business angle to it because these family trees turned out to be better than LinkedIn. Because I wanted to get people's attention. So I would try to get TV producers or reporters. And what I would do is I would figure out how they were related to me and then say, this may sound weird, but you're my distant cousin. Would you be interested in talking to me about? And, you know, 20% of them were like, you know, don't ever bother me again.

But 80% weirdly were like, you know, that's interesting. People like a connection, whether even if it's a distant one. And I remember I wanted to interview George H.W. Bush, the elder Bush, about family because he's got such a large and famous one. And so I emailed his chief of staff and she's like, well, the president doesn't do interviews anymore. And I said, well, yeah, but I am his cousin. And here's how. So maybe for a family. And she laughed and she's like, okay.

And I went down there and had a lovely time with the former president. That's fantastic. You know, and when I reached out to you, my opening line was, hey, I'm probably your cousin, but I bet you get that a lot. Well, no, it totally worked. I was like, you know what? I really better to respond. I do not want to anger my family. Here's the thing, AJ. Here's a scenario that I don't know if you, okay, well, so I'm going to throw you a wild card. Yeah. All right. I'm full-blooded Nepalese. Oh, wow. I come from a long line of arranged marriages with you. in Nepal's caste system. Wow, that's fascinating. So your parents were arranged marriage as well? Yes, my parents had an arranged marriage when my mom was 13 and my dad was 14. Wow. And my grandparents

had an arranged marriage at approximately the age of eight. Oh, my Lord. Were you born in the United States or were you born in Nepal? No, I was born in Kathmandu, Nepal. Wow. And how old were you when he came over? I was a baby. I was wearing diapers still. So with arranged marriages, the whole idea behind is that marriage happens not just within your country, but also specifically within a particular caste. The concept is predicated upon, like, maintaining very, very close sort of tribal networks. Right. When I hear about these family trees, there's a part of me that wonders, wait a minute, those of us who are from a caste system, are we off on our own little DNA island? That is really interesting. I mean, first of all, I'd be interested to read more about the

pros and cons of arranged marriage because I have I've read a little about how sometimes people are happy in arranged marriages but then there are of course many downsides and I also think it's interesting because we are now living in a time with online dating where people from very different backgrounds are getting together so it is kind of the opposite of that we are seeing more integration and mixed marriages than ever. So I'm really interested to see how that plays out. And if it helps with our racism problem, because there was this movie a long time ago called Bullworth with Warren Beatty.

And he played a senator that I remember I'm saying the only way to solve this racism problem is that everyone has to keep stooping everyone else until we're all the same color. He didn't use the word stooping, but I thought I'd save you in. on the podcast. But yeah, so that's what just occurred to me. In terms of you personally, there's an MIT study that says even people who are from very niche and sort of insular backgrounds, even they are far more integrated than they think because some of your cousins have no doubt married outside of that system, even if you

don't know it. So the far, the estimate is the farthest cousin you have on earth is about a 70th cousin, which is not all that far. I mean, most of us are more like, you know, 10th or 11th or 12th cousins, but say a yam farmer in New Guinea, he might be your 70th cousin. So anyway, you're still in there is the point. I'm still in there somewhere. I'd wonder about that as well, if maybe up in the family tree, someone at least, you know, if not married, then at least mated outside, maybe even just to a different cast, and what trickle-down effects that would have. I don't know. Right. Absolutely. Yeah. But in terms of documentable family tree, it's very insular. I've always been curious about that. But you know what? Maybe I'll do a DNA test and I'll let you know the

results. Yeah. Well, you have a very interesting family. I can't wait to hear the DNA results. Nice. That'll be a follow-up. And you have not had an arranged marriage yourself. I have not. My parents were, when I was in high school, they were pushing for it. Like, when I was in high school, they wouldn't allow me to date or take dates to school dances or talk on the phone with boys or anything like that. It was definitely a point of contention. And after I graduated from college, they tried to initiate the process. Wow. The way that it works is a matchmaker.

He will talk. He'll send a message to the two families. And he'll invite the moms of the two families to meet with each other. If the moms like each other, then the next step is that the dads from the two families would meet each other. And if they like each other, then they all. agree that their respective son and daughter will get married. And that's it. And then they plan a wedding and then you have a wedding. When I was 22, I just graduated from college. There was a matchmaker based in Chicago who contacted my parents. And he was trying to, at the request of the other family,

he was proposing arranging a marriage between me and the other family that still lived in Kathmandu. But the son, he wanted to come to the U.S. and go to med school or something. So my parents, you know, they phoned me and they were like, hey, we've got a family. We've found. found a boy, and I was like, click. Did you ever see a photo of him or talk to him? No. In fact, it was funny. I posted the letter on MySpace because MySpace was big at the time.

And the entire letter that the matchmaker sent just talked about the boy's family. Like, it talked about what his grandfather did, what his father did, what his uncles did. It talked about the stature and the position of the family. And there was literally one sentence devoted to the guy himself. That is fascinating. Yeah, it was all about the families getting together. You were just like a pawn in this chess game. Exactly, it's very Game of Thrones.

That is interesting. I don't know if you've seen the movie The Big Sick. Have you seen that? I haven't, no. Oh, I highly recommend it because it's about a guy from Pakistan whose parents want to arrange a marriage for him, but he falls in love with an Anglo. So, yeah, you might find it.

good and relevant. Nice. It's very funny. It's a comedy. Okay, cool. Yeah, I'll check that out. Speaking of funny, because you mentioned the Big Sick was funny, I actually wanted to ask you how you learned how to be funny.

Well, that's an interesting question. I mean, I do think that you can learn the skill of being funny. I don't think it's necessarily important. Maybe there's a certain penchant for it, but I think anyone can learn to be funny. I think it's partly just a way of looking at the world, but being very active about it. So I remember a comedy writer I know. He was one of the original Saturday Night Live writers. And he talks about how he likes to think he has a second head on his shoulder.

So he's sort of living his life, but that second head is evaluating all the time and saying, oh my God, that's so weird. Or isn't that curious and funny? I wonder if you can do a bit about that. So always having that awareness. And also I think that it's certainly not a science, of course, but there are methods you can use to help you in certain types of humor. Like, for instance, my first book, it's the one that you haven't read, you told me.

It's called The Two Kings, and it's about the eerie similarities between Elvis and Jesus. And it really shouldn't have been a book. It started as an art. article, and that's pretty much where it should have stayed. But listen, I wasn't going to turn it down when they offered me a book. But the idea was to find similarities between these two characters because the idea was Elvis actually once said he thought he might be the second coming of Jesus. So sort of a satirical look at, well, maybe he is. And for that one, I just took a bunch of notebooks and I split them down the middle and I wrote everything I could think of or research

about Elvis on one side and then everything I could about Jesus on the other and then you sort of start to make connections. So, you know, Elvis dated Sybil Shepard and Jesus was the Lord's shepherd. So hey, maybe there's something there. So there are ways to do it. And I am actually a fan of carving out 15 minutes a day just for brainstorming. He doesn't have to be humor, but just to come up with random ideas, 98% of which are going to be useless or terrible, but 2% might be useful. And more than that, it just keeps, it's like a muscle. I feel it keeps my brain a little more creative so that when I do need to come up with a solution, maybe I'll be in a better way. You know, if I do have a flat tire, maybe I'll have an easy,

easier time coming up with a way to fix it. When do you do your 15-minute brainstorm? Is that first thing when you get to the office, or is that more at night? It's usually I take a break right around now, actually. So, yeah, if I'm sort of losing steam on the morning, take a little break, brainstorm, and then maybe get my second wind. All right. Well, are there any other questions I've missed, or is there anything else you'd like to mention?

I don't think so. Well, there was one last story since we talked a lot in the beginning about the fake it till you make it and having this confidence. I do remember when I interviewed George Clooney for Esquire, he had a similar philosophy where he said he played high school or college baseball and he would get up there to the plate and say, he wouldn't ask, am I going to hit a home run? He'd say, which field am I going to hit a home run too? left, field center, or right. And that helped him be a better hitter. Of course, most of the time he still struck out or grounded out. But this sort of delusional optimism helped him in his overall hitting.

So I do like that idea of delusional optimism with caveats, because you don't want to be too delusional optimistic or else you end up doing crazy things. Has there ever been a time when you've been too delusional? optimistic and it's come back to bite you in the butt? Well, I would say, I mean, there are certainly books or articles that I've started and been very optimistic that they'll work out, but they never do. And that's fine. I mean, I think you have to become, you don't have to love failure, but you certainly have to accept it and realize that it's all part of the process. Right, right. I'm probably delusionally optimistic about my schedule. The number of things I think I can do

in a day. Oh, yeah. Well, that is an official cognitive bias. I forget what it's called the planning bias, maybe. Yeah, we all think we can do a lot more than we can. There's a great quote. I think it's by Jim Rohn that we overestimate what we can do in a day, but underestimate what we can do in five years. I love that. Yeah, that is interesting. I mean, it is amazing the pace of change today. So in five years, God knows what it's going to be like. Excellent. Well, thank you so much, AJ. It's been great chatting with you. Thank you, Paula. I had a great time. I loved hearing about your life. And I'll see you in Ecuador next year. Excellent. I would love that. Thank you, Paula. What an awesome interview. Thank you so much to AJ for coming on the show. By the way,

I wanted to make a quick note for anybody who might have gotten confused when I mentioned that I just got back from Ecuador, I recorded the interview back in October. So as of the time of the recording, I had just gotten back that morning. And BTW, I was completely dead for this. Like, I was a zombie during this interview. So I'm amazed that I was as quasi coherent as I was. I did that on very little sleep. Oh, by the way, after our interview, I asked my dad about my grandparents.

And I stand corrected. My grandmother was 10 years old when she got married, not eight. So my bad, stand corrected. So anyway, what are some of the key takeaways that we got from this? Well, number one, really the top thing that I want to emphasize is that it is easier to act your way into a new mode of feeling than it is vice versa. One thing I do is almost convince myself I'm an actor. You know, there's method acting. So what about method writing or method living?

A lot of people think that they need to feel. something before they can act on it. Oh, I'll start writing when I feel like it. I'll start exercising when I feel motivated. In fact, the opposite is true. The best cure for writers' block is to start writing and then eventually you begin to feel like writing. The best cure for not wanting to exercise is to start doing it. And that's one of the things that has stood out to me about all of AJ's experiments. He is developing new behaviors, new habits, and he has to you know, first get the initial momentum to start, and then he has to stick with it. It's kind of his job. And so every time he's launched a new experiment, whether it was living biblically or becoming

healthier, you always wondered, how is it that he got, A, past the initial hurdle, and B, didn't fall off the wagon or put himself back on the wagon if he did fall off. And, you know, the key, the answer that we just keep coming back to is, you just do it. That's how you do. That's how you anything is you just by doing it. It's incredibly circular, but it's real. It's true. The only way to have a new behavior is by having that new behavior. So you just have to take action. You can't sit around thinking about how you aren't inspired yet to take action. You just have to do it. So that is, I think, the top takeaway from this conversation. Act first and the feeling will follow. The other takeaway is I loved when AJ talked about his feeling of gratitude for everyone and everything.

I started being grateful for the tiniest things, like pressing the elevator button. I was grateful the elevator came. I get in the elevator. I'm grateful it doesn't plummet and break my pelvis. There are hundreds of things every day that we just take for granted. I try to start to be aware of them. And that has genuinely improved my lives. I thought that was incredibly powerful for somebody to be grateful for literally every detail from when you press an elevator button that the elevator shows up to the thousands of people who participated in the manufacturing and distribution of this laptop.

To have that level of gratitude every day about every little thing, number one, it makes you a happier person. And number two, to give this a little bit of a financial bent, I've always said that the best cure for wanting more stuff is being grateful for what you already have. Because if you're constantly focused on, oh, I don't have this, I don't have that. If you're focused on what you're lacking, then sure, you'll always be on the hamster wheel cycle of wanting more. but if you are incredibly grateful for the abundance of things that you already have, well, then you just don't want anymore because your life is already so abundant. And so then frugality doesn't become an exercise of deprivation. In fact, both the F word and the D word get to be thrown out the window entirely

because there is no frugality. There is no deprivation. It's irrelevant. You don't want any other stuff because you're just so grateful. for all of the incredible things that you already have. And so that's takeaway number two from this interview is develop the practice of gratitude, develop the habit of expressing and thinking and feeling and acting in ways that show your gratitude. And if you're not feeling it, remember, act first and the feeling will follow.

So act in ways that demonstrate gratitude, whether it's saying thank you or giving to others, keep acting in grateful ways and as you continue to do that, the feeling will follow. That's takeaway number two. And takeaway number three, which follows very closely on the heels of that idea, is to remember, particularly in times of divisiveness, we are all family. In some distant way, we are all related. And we're all part of this. We're all living on the same tiny speck of a plane.

way out in the middle of this infinite cosmos. Like we're all in this together. And we're all family and we're all related. And again, act first. If you act towards others as if they were your relatives, if you act towards others as if they are family, the feeling will follow. And that feeling of human kinship and connection,

you will have that the more that you act in ways that are kinshipful and connected. I made up that word, but I kind of like it. Those are my takeaways from this awesome interview with AJ Jacobs. His new book, It's All Relative, is out in stores right now. Please pick up a copy because like everything he writes, it's awesome. I have read almost all of his books. I've read all but one. And ironically, the one that I have not read, which was his very first book. It was a comparison between Jesus and Elvis. Ironically, the only one that I haven't read is actually the shortest. But the rest of his books are hilarious. So I'm going to link to all of those in the show notes, which again are available at afford anything.com slash episode 105. And remember,

a transcript of this interview is available for free at the show notes, Affordanithing.com slash episode 105. You can download this transcript for free. And by doing so, you know, you you will subscribe to getting the show notes delivered to your inbox. So head on over to the website to check that out. Affordanything.com slash episode 105. Coming up in the next couple of weeks, we have, of course, every other week. I take questions from you, the listeners, the community. And we also have interviews coming up with Will Bowen about creating a complaint-free world.

Natalie Sison, about traveling to 70 countries while running a business from her laptop. And Tanya and Mark, a couple who retired at the age of 38 and 41, respectively. So all of those episodes are coming up throughout the months of December and January. This is the Afford Anything podcast. My name is Paula Pant. Thank you so much for tuning in. If you enjoyed today's show, please share it with a friend. And remember, you can get the show notes and the transcript at afford anything.com slash episode 105. Thanks for tuning in, and I'll catch you next week. What activities do you do? Do you just chat and drink coffee or there's like zip lines? What's on the agenda? All of the above. So what we'll typically do is they're four bloggers. And so once a day, one of the bloggers will take a turn to making a two-hour presentation. And then in our time off, when we're not presenting, the organizer plans all of these different excursions. So like one day we went to the equator. And depending on the location of the event, the excursions will be different. So once we went to a chocolate-making factory. Oh, that sounds good. Oh, yeah, that was awesome. And then one day we went zip lining. And during this particular trip, this last, one. We were in a different location than the one that I normally go to. So, oh, what were some of our activities? Yes, sleep would be helpful. Let's see, one day there was a big group trip to a condor park. One day there was a trip to a bunch of big markets where people sell handcrafted items, you know, things like that. That sounds fantastic. Thank you. Yeah, it was a lot of fun.

Yeah. And that's every year. So listeners, sign up now. You know what, this year, actually, while I was there, I got to have breakfast with Vicki Robin, who's the author of your money or your life. Oh, great. That's one of the first finance books I ever read. So that was incredible. That's great. That is great. And how was meeting one of your big influences? Was it everything you hoped or a huge disappointment? It was a little surreal. I mean, so not only was it one of the first finance books I ever read, it was, I think, really the book that the foundation of the financial independence movement is is built on. So I told her that during breakfast. I was like, Vicky, you're the foundation. And she was like, yeah, stand on me.

I like that. It was definitely surreal. I was, you know, one of the presenters. And so Vicky had emailed the organizer saying, hey, I would love to meet Paula and Brandon. She mentioned the two of us. She was like, I'd love to meet the two of them. Is there any time we'll be overlapping? Because she came in on the day that we left. And so when I found that out, I was like, wait a minute, one of my favorite authors knows who I am. So that's incredible. That is awesome. That is, that's great. I love it. Yeah. You're better than she is, though. She's kind of a hack. Oh, thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. I love yours. You know, the other thing that it did, just a final comment on this is that sometimes when I meet my readers or my listeners, I

get really nervous beforehand because I wonder if my very existence is going to be a disappointment. Oh, right. Interesting. Yeah. So I wonder, like, if they'll meet me and they're like, ah, you're not as cool in person as I'd hoped. You're a human being, exactly. You're not like a mythical creature. Exactly. So I always get really nervous before I meet any of my readers for exactly that reason. And so, you know, to be on the other side of that and then meet Vicky Robin and have the experience of knowing like, hey, she's one of my heroes and I'm not even remotely disappointed. I'm very happy. So it can happen. I guess it's probably okay. Right. Yeah, that's great.